Welcome to the first week of Lent. If you look around the Chapel or your classrooms, you will notice the colour has changed back to purple. Lent is a season of stripping back. It is forty days of preparing for Easter, traditionally focused on fasting, giving, and praying. This week, our theme is Prayer. But rather than thinking of prayer as a list of requests we hand to God, we are going to look at it as a place we go to—a quiet wilderness in a very noisy world.

Section 1: The Wilderness

We invite you to start with the Sign of the Cross.

Response: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark

“And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.””

The Gospel of the Lord

R./ Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.

Immediately after Jesus was baptised, before He healed anyone or preached a single sermon, He went into the desert. For forty days, there were no crowds, no followers, and no distractions. Just silence, struggle, and God. We live in an incredibly loud world. We are constantly connected, constantly receiving notifications, and constantly listening to other people’s opinions. Lent is an invitation to step into the “wilderness.” It is a challenge to turn down the volume of the world so that we can finally hear the voice of God, and maybe even hear our own thoughts clearly. Prayer begins when we are brave enough to sit in the quiet.

Discussion Questions:

• Why do you think silence makes us feel uncomfortable sometimes?
  
• If you had to go to a “wilderness” (a place with absolutely no screens, music, or distractions) for 24 hours, what would you find the most difficult?
  

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Section 2: The Stillness

We invite you to start with the Sign of the Cross.

Response: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

When a glass of muddy water is shaken up, you can’t see through it. But if you leave it completely still on a table, the dirt slowly settles to the bottom, and the water becomes clear. Our minds are often like that shaken glass. We are stressed about exams, friendships, and the future. Prayer is the act of sitting still long enough for the dirt to settle, giving us clarity.

As the music plays, we are going to practice the art of stillness. We aren’t watching a screen today. Just rest your eyes, or look down at your desk. Try to let your breathing slow down to match the pace of the piano.

• What is the “mud” swirling around in my mind today? What am I stressing about?
• Can I give myself permission to just let it settle for these three minutes?
• “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). Allow yourself to simply be held in this quiet moment.

Section 3: The Empty Space

We invite you to start with the Sign of the Cross.

Response: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen

Lent is famous for people “giving things up”—like chocolate or social media. But the point of fasting isn’t just to make ourselves miserable. The point of emptying something out is to create a space for something better. If we want to pray this Lent, we have to create the empty space for it.

The Activity: The Three-Minute Desert Open your student planners to this week’s diary page.

1. Find the Space: Look at your timetable for tomorrow. Find a small gap—maybe a break time, the bus ride home, or the moment just before you go to sleep.
2. Draw the Brackets: Take a pen and draw two square brackets like this [ ] in that section of your planner. Leave the space inside the brackets completely empty.
3. The Commitment: This is your “Three-Minute Desert.” When you reach that point in your day tomorrow, you are committing to three minutes of total silence. No phone, no music, no talking.

When you step into your empty space tomorrow, you don’t even have to say a formal prayer. Just sit in the silence and say, “Lord, I am here.” Let the dust settle.